Re-Public Shifting Focus to ReFi and DeSci Use Cases
ReFi and DeSci embody the bigger vision of Re-Public – transforming the world's economy to give value back to those that create it.
When Re-Public first started, its main use case was getting people paid for their data. The thinking was, since we would need a large number of users for each user's data to be valuable, we could target passive income seekers as our first users.
These first users didn't care so much about the data ownership aspects of Re-Public, however, and it became clear that we were thinking too small.
Since Re-Public's beginning, more mission-aligned communities have sprung up in the forms of Regenerative Finance (ReFi) and Decentralized Science (DeSci). These movements are much more aligned with the bigger vision of Re-Public, which is transforming the world's economy to give value back to those that create it.
What Is ReFi?
ReFi is the concept of creating systems where participants accrue wealth and value while also creating positive externalities for the planet and humanity.
For example, KlimaDAO allows people to pool their money together to acquire a huge number of carbon assets. As they do this, carbon offsets become more scarce and the price of those offsets increases.
Suddenly projects that generate carbon offsets are much more financially viable and get funding, spreading across the planet. At the same time, the people who pooled their money together see their assets increase in value and become wealthier as well. It's a win-win-win scenario. People win, KlimaDAO wins, and the planet wins (if it works, which is TBD).
Ta da, you now have Regenerative Finance. Get rich while saving the planet and increasing the quality of life for everyone on the planet.
What is DeSci
Decentralized Science is an attempt to remove the gatekeepers and central authorities from science. Right now there are a lot of bottlenecks to the speed of human innovation because not everyone who could, and would, do useful science is able to.
Right now, it doesn't matter if you can contribute valuable data or experiments. It only matters if the central authorities of science (academic institutions, publications, leaders of industry, etc.) deem your efforts valuable and worthy.
While there are good reasons why this has been the case in the past, there are better reasons why it no longer has to be this way. And yes, why it shouldn't be this way.
The problems humanity is facing are too big, too complex, and moving too fast. We need an organic and decentralized process for finding and rewarding good science at scale. Hence, the DeSci movement.
Data Streams of Gold
You've probably sussed out that ReFi and DeSci often go together, like peanut butter and jelly. And the connective tissue between them is data.
Let's take the carbon offset example. How are carbon offsets verified? How can the market be sure that the carbon that is claimed to be offset is actually gone from the atmosphere?
Data and DeSci. We need ways of measuring the world that can verify what has been done and help us see if our efforts are effective or not. Otherwise we're all just guessing, assuming, and arguing over differing assumptions and intuitions.
So a carbon offset project might purchase and steward a large piece of land that can be shown to take carbon from the atmosphere with its lush ecosystem. The stewards of this property would like to be paid for the value that their carbon reduction provides.
A company like Microsoft knows that their current business will be generate a bunch of carbon for the foreseeable future. They're willing to pay money to an offset project that can prove their offsets in order to claim a net zero carbon impact.
But how does Microsoft know that this piece of property is indeed doing what it claims?
A key component of this will be measuring the property with technology. Drones, satellite imaging, soil sensors, geo tracking of animals, etc. The data streams from these devices are like gold.
Many people and organization have gotten this far in their thinking. But Re-Public wants everyone to think bigger.
How Re-Public Helps ReFi and DeSci
In the land stewardship example, the implied buyer of the data coming from these streams is a carbon offset verification entity, like Verra. But there are so many more.
Let's think bigger. The stewards of this property have real-time data documenting just about every aspect of a particular piece of planet earth. That's valuable not only to Verra, but to a vast number of researchers and businesses across the planet.
These data streams are for earth what giant telescopes are for space. Their data streams can offer insights into our environment and lives on a level never before possible. All that's standing in the way is the infrastructure to share that data with the people who can use it.
That's where Re-Public comes in. With Re-Public, the stewards of the carbon negative property could also steward the data streams.
The Re-Public platform will offer:
- Secure encrypted storage of all generated data. Data is portable to any service to leverage falling prices of storage.
- Automated buyer discovery through marketplace listings. Not just one buyer, many buyers.
- Open source data standards and device-specific integrations. Reduced need for custom device integrations and in-house dev teams.
- Licensing and enforcement. Open source licenses and data fingerprinting ensures the data is only used according to the wishes of the data providers
- Passive deal flows. Set preferences and let Re-Public negotiate deals automatically and continuously.
- Querying and reporting tools that allow data providers to better visualize and understand their data for themselves
- Trustless, permissionless software. The Re-Public software is open source and its infrastructure is controlled by the users of the platform itself. An autonomous software utility serving its community.
- Market efficient pricing. Minimal platform fees accrue to the community and go back into improving the product (coincidentally this is another example of ReFi). No extractive middleman increasing rates to make a profit and pay for its own operation.
What Do You Think?
No matter who you are, we'd like you to be part of the Re-Public journey. Does this make sense? What do you think we should do? Come join the discussion and subscribe to this blog:
Join Discord